An Aspect Of Affiliate Marketing That May Lead To Higher Conversions

March 24, 2009

By Peter Pelliccia

It’s not that I usually spend a lot of time checking my stats, but I figured that just for the hell of it I would take a look at a couple of my more active affiliates to see how they were tracking. I chose Commission Junction and ClixGalore and what I found wasn’t really all that surprising. So far this month Commission Junction reported 27,280 impressions which resulted in 55 clicks and ClixGalore reported 10,456 which resulted in 172 clicks.

It wasn’t the fact that ClixGalore resulted in more clicks per impression that intrigued me as much as not one of those clicks resulted in a sale. While I don’t spend a whole lot of time marketing my affiliates I know that there are a lot of bloggers out there that do and I was wondering what their conversion rates were. I figured that I could expect at least a 10% conversion rate which should have resulted in at least 22 sales or leads but to come up with an empty slate lead me to wondering why.

You would think that a person would only click on a link that was of some interest to them and that by doing so the person that sent them there virtually had their foot in the door. So, all the hard work has been done to lead the prospective buyer to a product and yet no sale is made. There seems to be one of three reasons for the lack of a sale.

He hasn’t quite made up his mind to a purchase so he may actually do so at a later date.

He was never really interested and only clicked out of curiosity.

The landing page was not good enough to convert to a sale.

I know when I choose an affiliate I usually pick one that I find interesting or one that I believe would be of interest to others. I usually don’t actively promote them unless, like the FlexSqueeze Theme, it’s one that I truly believe in. The thing is, should we, as part of our marketing regime, also be looking at the landing page of the affiliate? After all, what is the point of doing all that work if it’s going to be wasted because the landing page is of such poor quality that no-one in their right mind would buy from it? I suppose it’s akin to a shopper that walks into a dark, dingy dirty shop and then turns right around and walks out.

Anyway, I was wondering what you guys think. Do you ever look at the landing page to see if it’s worth the effort of all that hard work?

I’ve been wondering the same thing, Sire. Supposedly, one should be making a sale at least every 100 clicks, but that doesn’t seem to hold true for our field. Part of it makes me wonder if the reason we don’t make sales is because everyone else is in the field with us, and, at a certain point, some of these items seem familiar. And yet, Commission Junction items should offer something different for most people.

Of course, you have me looking around on this blog wondering where your CJ ads are.

Hi Mitch, even at that rate I should have made at least two sales. As for my Commission Junction ads, I haven’t actually had time to implement them on the new theme yet but they’re not too far away. I will be using OIOpublisher to display my them but I have a few things to do first before I implement them. I don’t know if I will go as far as checking landing pages, at least not until I have more time on my hands.

I’ll wait to see what they look like on your blog before I think about doing it on mine; I’m talking about the OIO thing. For now, I’ve removed a couple of the CJ ads from my site that I didn’t feel fit what the blog is mainly about.

It’s like they say Mitch, ask and thou shall receive. Just did it quickly. You can configure it to display as many ads as you want. I chose the 3×2 configuration. Didn’t really take too much time with the affiliates displayed so I may change them at a later date.

I’ve heard about the problems with tracking statistics as well. My friend actualy send couple emails to them about it recently but as of yet they haven’t replied. However he’s never had any problems with tracking sales so I guess you have nothing to worry about.

I have checked out most my affiliate programs, and they seem really good. If I were in the purchasing mood, I would buy from them. I think it may be like Mitch said – most people who come to our sites are used to seeing the same affiliates, and it may make for a blind eye towards them.

If after a hundred clicks there are no sales, I remove from my advertising campaign. I won’t waste time advertising or promoting a non-profit maker. If I particularly like or use the product or service I may reconsider.

I have one now where I am only making a sale in every 200-250 clicks, but I believe in the product 100%, so I am going against my golden rule.

Hi Geoff, thanks for taking the time to comment. Those impressions I mentioned in the post are for multiple affiliates not just one. If they were for just the one I reckon I would have tried a different affiliate before now.

I would be afraid that you are not getting credit from the vendor. A friend of mine used my site to connect to hostgator and set up a new account…but OF COURSE, hostgator said that he did not come from my affiliate link. That really turned me off. We will see, but they said it will be made right. I’ll let you know.

So, does that mean that you know for a fact that someone clicked on your link, made a purchase and they do not recognize the fact. That’s bullshit. If I knew that CJ were doing that I would drop them for sure.

Yes, I know that for a fact, Sire. I know who bought the items because I sent her specific links. She allowed me to use her name, give the tracking number of what she ordered, price, etc. I sent that to both the company she bought the items from, then Commission Junction itself. I’m still waiting for an answer, but CJ said it’s up to the advertisers to pay, but they’ll keep an eye on what transpires. However, they also said it could take a couple of weeks; that part I feel is bogus, but what can I do, other than, at some point, possibly drop this company? But right now, if those sales go through, I’ll make a nice chunk of change, as she purchased a third item this week of almost $200; and I sent her that link also.

That sucks Mitch. Still, hopefully they will sort it all out. I’d really like to know the out come. Even though I have that $100 in the system since December, I still haven’t had a payment. ClixGalore on the other hand is a lot more regular as long as you’ve reached the minimum level for payout.

Page Expiration Robot PRO Multi-Site [WSO]PER is the ultimate conversion tool. Expire posts or pages on a visitor-by-visitor basis after a specified amount of time with intelligent countdown timers. Then redirect them to any URL.

SoreThumb - You Just Can't Ignore It!SoreThumb is a revolutionary new way to help you make DAMN sure that the visitors on your site take notice of your ads, your links, your call-to-actions, your opt-in-boxes, your social icons and like buttons – it’s like your own personal spotlight operato

Covert MessengerNew WordPress Plugin Lets You Easily Create Cool Intant Messenger Ads On Your Blogs - These Ads Will Suck Your Visitors In and Literally Force Them To Click On Any Link You Want!

WP LinkizerWP Linkizer automatically turns every link into your blogs content into a money making machine. It does this by split testing multiple anchor text phrases and defaulting to the phrase thats gets the highest click through rate.